Wilfred Owen's troubling obsession with young boys

[Uncle George]

A very interesting article in 'The Spectator':

 

https://www.spectator.co.uk/2018/01/wilfred-owens-troubling-obsession-with-young-boys/

[Guest]

   Do you mean Wilfred Owen MC.?   Let's stick to a known fact.

[Dust Jacket Collector]

Seems to be a rather luridly speculative article. I can’t think anyone in the last 50 years could have been in doubt about Owen’s sexuality.

[michaeldr]

All of this may have been entirely innocent and, in any event, it has little relevance to the worth of his poetry. 
and
None of this would matter much if such trouble had not been taken, most recently in Cuthbertson’s biography, to deny Owen’s true sexual identity and nature, as if admitting that our greatest war poet loved young men might somehow put us off his poetry. 

 

Mr Nigel Jones doesn't seem to know what he wants here - If this is irrelevant, then why waste time writing the article? 

[Guest]

Having been part of the generation forced to study the bore war poets at skool in some misguided idea that their views  were representative of the war I am rather with Wing Commander Lord Flashheart who famously said  "... it doesn't mean I'm not sick of this damned war; the mud, the noise, the endless poetry."

 

Lewis Stempel:

 

"The trenches of the First World War are now almost impossible to reach. It is not just that those excavations on the plains of Flanders and the Somme are buried under the plough of the farmer and the grass of time, it is that they are surrounded by a moat deep with the pitying tears of the war poets. Across the lachrymose ditch though, some definite khaki figures loom: there is the heroic, cheerful Tommy and the sclerotic, incompetent general. Much less distinct is the junior officer, who seems to be either composing exquisite pacifist poems in the manner of Wilfred Salter Owen, or braying stupidly."

Edited 8 January , 2018 by Guest

[robbie56]

 

The article suggests a connection between C K Scott Moncrieff and Owen.

There was a Major RJH Moncrieff, also Edinburgh University, of the Royal Scots. I believe the Colonel of the 9th RS was also a Moncrieff. Anybody know if they're of the same Moncrieff ?

Edited 8 January , 2018 by robbie56

[Uncle George]

This sentence came as a surprise to me:

 

"We know now that Owen at first welcomed the war, which he thought would ‘effect a little useful weeding’ of Europe’s multiplying lower orders."

[John_Hartley]

1 hour ago, Dust Jacket Collector said:

I can’t think anyone in the last 50 years could have been in doubt about Owen’s sexuality.

I don't think I've ever considered Owen's sexuality. Nor do I understand why it's of interest to the Spectator - apart from the bits of lurid speculation which are always a good journalistic ruse. Assuming Owen was homosexual, it's hardly surprising that he, and his brother until the 1970s, kept quiet about it - it was, after all, illegal until 1967 (and into the early 1980s for Scotland & Northern Ireland.

[Uncle George]

29 minutes ago, Uncle George said:

This sentence came as a surprise to me:

 

"We know now that Owen at first welcomed the war, which he thought would ‘effect a little useful weeding’ of Europe’s multiplying lower orders."

 

"We know now ... " is a little misleading. As is the quote as a whole, when read in context. I find that in his Introduction to Owen's 'Collected Poems' (1963), C. Day Lewis quotes Owen's "Letter of August 28th, 1914":

 

"I feel my own life all the more precious and more dear in the presence of this deflowering of Europe. While it is true that the guns will effect a little useful weeding, I am furious with chagrin to think that the Minds, which were to have excelled the civilization of two thousand years, are being annihilated - and bodies, the product of aeons of NaturalSelection, melted down to pay for political statues." 

[Guest]

1 hour ago, robbie56 said:

 

The article suggests a connection between C K Scott Moncrieff and Owen.

There was a Major RJH Moncrieff, also Edinburgh University, of the Royal Scots. I believe the Colonel of the 9th RS was also a Moncrieff. Anybody know if they're of the same Moncrieff ?

 

     I think not- this has been up recently-"Memoirs of an Edinburgh Mountaineer" is a Moncrieff. But not this Scott-Moncrieff- the excellent translator of Proust and an officer of the Scots Guards, I believe

1 hour ago, QGE said:

Lewis Stempel:

 

"The trenches of the First World War are now almost impossible to reach. It is not just that those excavations on the plains of Flanders and the Somme are buried under the plough of the farmer and the grass of time, it is that they are surrounded by a moat deep with the pitying tears of the war poets. Across the lachrymose ditch though, some definite khaki figures loom: there is the heroic, cheerful Tommy and the sclerotic, incompetent general. Much less distinct is the junior officer, who seems to be either composing exquisite pacifist poems in the manner of Wilfred Salter Owen, or braying stupidly."

 

     If Mr. Stempel has written this, then it must be true

Edited 8 January , 2018 by Guest

[Guest]

 

     I think not- this has been up recently-"Memoirs of an Edinburgh Mountaineer" is a Moncrieff. But not this Scott-Moncrieff- the excellent translator of Proust and an officer of the Scots Guards, I believe

 

     If Mr. Stempel has written this, then it must be true

His book, despite two rather glaring errors is excellent. ....

 

On topic, surely the sexuality of the War Poets (or any other person for that matter) is irrelevant, boring and sadly steeped in the Red Top meeja double-standards. Sad to see the Spectaularlyboring go down this alley (i am a lifelong subscriber and thought it a rather shabby article....  The British Army has been turning a blind  eye to homosexuals (when it was 'illegal') for many years. It was certainly passively ignored in my day. One of my cohort's  Troop Commanders is openly homosexual, never hid it and no-one even thought it was an issue. The UK even put up statues to them (quite rightly)  - Gordon of Khartoum  - incidentally the finest martial statue of them all on his camel. Whitehall gardens has a poorer statue of him dismounted.  Churchill famously summarisd the Royal Navy as "rum, sodomy and the lash". As First Lord of the Admiralty I can only assume he had first hand knowledge. The article tells us almost nothing that the least-informed students of W S Owen MC don't already know....it really says more about our Society that his brother and the self appointed custodians of his legacy find it difficult to acknowledge his homosexuality.

 

A counter-article should be written with the title "Who sodding well cares?"

 

A great Gay Gordon: 

 

[Dust Jacket Collector]

General Gordon, really? You wouldn’t have guessed it from Charlton Heston’s portrayal of the great man in Khartoum, which I saw on the box over the weekend.

[Guest]

10 minutes ago, Dust Jacket Collector said:

General Gordon, really? You wouldn’t have guessed it from Charlton Heston’s portrayal of the great man in Khartoum, which I saw on the box over the weekend.

 

He was mis-cast.

[yperman]

4 hours ago, Dust Jacket Collector said:

Seems to be a rather luridly speculative article. I can’t think anyone in the last 50 years could have been in doubt about Owen’s sexuality.

It seems to be a growing  fashion to make sexual allegations against dead men who cannot defend themselves. I recently read Slim's ' Defeat into Victory' and then turned to Wikipedia to be informed 40 odd years after his death he was accused of having performed a homosexual paedophile act while Governor of Australia.  While not defending the  guilty,  the evil of this growing tendency of waiting till the man is dead  before making the allegation is to leave a stain or at least a question mark on - in the case of Slim- someone who was rightly regarded by his men as a great man. Such allegations  cannot be proved either way and  cause pain to the dead man's family without, to my mind, achieving anything useful. 

[Guest]

5 minutes ago, yperman said:

It seems to be a growing  fashion to make sexual allegations against dead men who cannot defend themselves. I recently read Slim's ' Defeat into Victory' and then turned to Wikipedia to be informed 40 odd years after his death he was accused of having performed a homosexual paedophile act while Governor of Australia.  While not defending the  guilty,  the evil of this growing tendency of waiting till the man is dead  before making the allegation is to leave a stain or at least a question mark on - in the case of Slim- someone who was rightly regarded by his men as a great man. Such allegations  cannot be proved either way and  cause pain to the dead man's family without, to my mind, achieving anything useful. 

 

Allegations against dead men can be proved. Just ask the BBC.  

 

Separately the historical blurred lines of perception of homosexuality, paedophilia and pederastry  are evident in the article. They are not necessarily the same. The article rather shamefully makes the un-proven assumption that Owen's homosexuality involved pederastry simply because he used the word 'boy'. If one were to be categorised and castigated

 on the use of this single word, it would be a sad day. 

 

Separately I thought the references to Shadwell, ghosts, etc were interesting: an earlier version of Polari....perchance proto-Polari. Jules and Sandy of the Royal Marines Commando Club Paddington would think it was bona.

 

MG

[brummell]

'In 1974, the poet Jon Stallworthy wrote  the first independent biography of Owen, with Harold’s beady eye peering over his shoulder. He pulled his punches accordingly, ignoring any idea that Owen’s tender feelings for his troops might have been influenced by a lover’s rather than a poet’s passions.'

 

Mr Jones evidently discounts out of hand the possibility that an officer might have tender feelings for his soldiers born of natural compassion of one man for another, particularly when living the British model of junior leadership all day every day, and frequently under fire.  This seems a rather narrow-minded, incurious outlook. 

 

[horrocks]

I read it last night, and thought that it was a dreadfully written article, and one without any apparent objective or conclusion. I have been studying Owen's poetry, and would only remark that, whatever homoerotic imagery may or may not be conjured up from time to time, it doesn't come close in explicitness to that of Herbert Reed, whose descriptions of the bond between the men, and the care that he himself felt for the men under his command, quite clearly constitute paeans of erotic love. I find it quite difficult to comprehend that anyone would find them anything other than extremely moving.

[horrocks]

On 08/01/2018 at 13:22, QGE said:

Lewis Stempel:

 

"The trenches of the First World War are now almost impossible to reach. It is not just that those excavations on the plains of Flanders and the Somme are buried under the plough of the farmer and the grass of time, it is that they are surrounded by a moat deep with the pitying tears of the war poets. Across the lachrymose ditch though, some definite khaki figures loom: there is the heroic, cheerful Tommy and the sclerotic, incompetent general. Much less distinct is the junior officer, who seems to be either composing exquisite pacifist poems in the manner of Wilfred Salter Owen, or braying stupidly."

 

Very...poetic...

[michaeldr]

In his 'The Great War and Modern Memory', Paul Fussell [1975] discusses 'The Homoerotic Sensuousness of Wilfrid Owen' (pages 360-75 in my copy)

In my opinion this is a more useful study than that of NJ in the Spectator

Indeed, the whole of Fussell's chapter 8 'Soldier Boys' helps put this in perspective

[Fattyowls]

A similar article was found in the Daily Mail from 2014 by Ilkley Remembers and posted here. I read that article (while holding my nose) and felt that there was an agenda to which the facts were fitted.

 

Pete.

[Guest]

  Vilification of those unable to respond- through death or otherwise - has alas, always been a hallmark of the British guttersnipes  Press. How to get salacious copy-albeit nonsense and devoid usually of real "fact" is such a comfort to the libel lawyers that all of these rags use. The Rule of the Dinner Table should prevail- if you cannot say something to someone's face, then don't say it all. 

   I was disturbed  not long ago that a former distinguished newspaper editor-himself now deceased- had taken it upon himself to attack the memory of 2 left-wing historians shortly after their respective deaths in long articles published in his former rag. Both historians had got comfortably past 90 so there had been a goodly number of years for this man to attack each of them while they were still alive and able to respond. But he chose only to vilify within days of their respective deaths- the mark not of moral integrity in what he wrote (garbage) but the mark of a moral coward and hypocrite.

    Statistically, several hundreds of thousands of homosexuals must have served in the Great War.  With distinction.

      The Owen story published now seems like a  trailer for more of this stuff come the centennial of Owen's death in November this year. Alas. 

Edited 20 January , 2018 by Guest

[Medaler]

On the whole I find it more troubling that Owen features on the school curriculum. So its more that I have concerns about young boys obsessing with Wilfred Owen. It usually leads to them forgetting that John McCrae wrote 3 verses.

Edited 20 January , 2018 by Medaler

[hazelclark]

The “Spectator” did exactly what it set out to do.  Sell copy.

H.C.

 

[healdav]

On 08/01/2018 at 18:23, QGE said:

 

 

 

On topic, surely the sexuality of the War Poets (or any other person for that matter) is irrelevant, boring and sadly steeped in the Red Top meeja double-standards. Sad to see the Spectaularlyboring go down this alley (i am a lifelong subscriber and thought it a rather shabby article....  The British Army has been turning a blind  eye to homosexuals (when it was 'illegal') for many years. It was certainly passively ignored in my day. One of my cohort's  Troop Commanders is openly homosexual, never hid it and no-one even thought it was an issue. The UK even put up statues to them (quite rightly)  - Gordon of Khartoum  - incidentally the finest martial statue of them all on his camel. Whitehall gardens has a poorer statue of him dismounted.  Churchill famously summarisd the Royal Navy as "rum, sodomy and the lash". As First Lord of the Admiralty I can only assume he had first hand knowledge. The article tells us almost nothing that the least-informed students of W S Owen MC don't already know....it really says more about our Society that his brother and the self appointed custodians of his legacy find it difficult to acknowledge his homosexuality.

 

A counter-article should be written with the title "Who sodding well cares?"

 

A great Gay Gordon: 

 

 

When I was at Staff College we had a lecture by he then Head of Naval Security. Homosexuality was still illegal in the armed forces. Someone asked what he did when someone confessed to homosexual activity on board a ship.

"Change the subject".